As
one of America’s top research facilities, Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory is constantly pioneering new ways ensure national
security and apply science and technology. According to Lynn Wilder,
head of the GIS Group, ImageConnect plays a key role in satisfying
the spatial information needs of the Lab. “Whether it’s
for homeland defense projects or environmental and civil engineering
projects, ImageConnect has been a powerful solution for our satellite
and aerial imagery needs. We’ve got over 7000 people here,
and our department does GIS for people across the whole lab.”According to Lynn, ImageConnect has contributed to greater effectiveness and saved money in several areas:
Homeland Security
Whether they’re using the ImageConnect extensions in 2D ArcMap projects, or creating advanced 3D models with ArcGlobe, instant online imagery from GlobeXplorer’s database has made Livermore’s ability to do virtual simulations and area analysis more efficient, effective and inexpensive.
“We bring in a lot of GlobeXplorer images and drape them over digital elevation models, and are able to do wonderful 3D fly-throughs in areas of interest to us,” said Lynn. “It’s so powerful when you’ve got a researcher next to you and you can bring in their data, let’s say a sensor location, and just hit the ImageConnect download button and boom - here’s everything around the sensor. It’s been so powerful!”
Civil Projects
ImageConnect recently came in handy when the labs were working with PG&E to look for vegetation changes around natural gas pipelines as a way to detect leaks. “ImageConnect’s high resolution photos allowed me to follow the path of the pipeline. I could see the disturbed earth and instantly gather coordinate points for it so that we could do further analysis.”
Environmental Projects
In conjunction with the California Energy Commission, the labs also oversee a number of wind farms in the Northwest, like the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area east of the Labs, and ImageConnect is a key tool in the process of maintaining and installing turbines.
“We’re in a process of replacing smaller turbines with newer, more efficient ones. The high resolution of GlobeXplorer’s library recently helped us to digitize over 1000 turbines over a very short period of time by viewing them in the photos.”
ImageConnect has also helped the GIS department with a number of watershed modeling projects in ArcGlobe. “We use ImageConnect to help calculate flow and know more about areas of interest. GlobeXplorer imagery is such a great complement to the Forest Service stream gauge data. Is a given area rocky or covered with trees? And how might this influence flow of water into the watershed? We can know instantly.”
Key Benefits
Spatial Accuracy: “The spatial accuracy, high resolution, and excellent contrast in GlobeXplorer’s data is remarkable, and often helps us do ground truthing. Whether we are working with stream gauges, military sites, or wind farms, we’re constantly using it for correcting and improving various spatial databases.”
Ease of Installation & Use: “It was so easy to get ImageConnect going. We literally had it up and running in minutes and started to use it right away.”
Value: “GlobeXplorer’s service has been very cost-efficient for us. We only pay for what we actually use.”
Selection: “We often take advantage of all of the different versions of imagery available over a given area. We can do time-change analyses using the different versions of imagery available to us, and we’ve even used it to do analyses of traffic in and out of chemical plants”
